Merang River Safari

This weekend we took a ride by boat up the Merang River, about a half hour from KT. We were guided by an employee of a local tourism company called Ping Anchorage. One the way, we saw two Monitor Lizards exploring the river banks. The larger of the two was around 4.5 ft long. We docked at a jetty and headed into a village, whose chief revenue came from making palm thatched roofing (cost= 15 cents a yard) and extracting sugar from coconut juice. Which, sells for around 30 cents a package.
We also came to a man who had 5 monkeys, chained to trees by their necks. He "trains" them to climb palm trees and collect coconuts. Then, after three months, he sells them to local coconut farmers for 150 RM each (about 50 dollars). This section of the trip was rather disturbing. Why the farmers do not just use ladders is beyond me. I'm looking into agencies who might help free and rehabilitate creatures like these.
The man showed off his monkey's skill and sent one up a nearby tree. Once up there, it twisted the coconuts until they broke free and came crashing to the ground. Each was about the size of a volley ball and weighed around ten pounds. If one fell on your head, you might die. Our guide opened them with a machete and we all drank the juice. I also shared a cigarette made from coconut bark. It was a very surreal journey.
I shot some video of the monkeys. I will post that as soon as I can.




Journey up the Merang River.
These were the variety of gigantic F#ing! spiders literally hanging from every tree. I'm not kidding. I've never seen so many arachnid ever. As soon as we got off at the jetty there was a tree with around 20 of these puppies hanging from massive webs. They were commonly the size of an open adult hand including finger length. I'm not sure if they were poisonous or not. Our guide was not too fluent in English.

This was a field with grazing Malaysian Buffalo.

That is our guide walking through the village where the monkey's were kept.

Coconut slaves.
Village road.